12 June 2017
It was last summer when the mayors of a number of French seaside resorts forbade Muslim women from wearing burkinis on the beach.
france
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- 3 April 2017If we want to understand what is going on today in France, we need to start by saying something about the global geopolitical trend, of which France is obviously part.
- 9 January 2015The barbarian and inhumane attack on innocent French journalists and cartoonists of Charlie Hebdo — following incidents like the massacre in Peshawar, the killings of the innocent Yazidis by the Islamic State and the kidnapping of 172 women by Boko Haram in Nigeria — have created a sense of alarm and fear of religious fanaticism. Fear of religious fanaticism is nothing new in our world. What is new about all these attacks is that they have all taken the form of a new barbarism.
- 10 May 2010On April 2nd in Nantes, a 31-year-old woman wearing the niqab while driving her car was fined by the police for violating traffic laws. According to the policeman who stopped her, her attire did not permit her to ‘drive comfortably.' The result was a very lively debate with an angry exchange between Tariq Ramadan and Interior Minister Brice Hortefeux. The government’s anti-burqa draft law, however, has been welcomed positively by the Association for the Defence of Women’s Rights “Ni putes, Ni soumises” (neither prostitutes nor submissive). Only a few days ago Belgium passed a law forbidding the full veil in all public places.
